The Bet

Myles heard his cousin’s overt worry for Estelle and threw him a warning look. The possessiveness that hit him upon witnessing Isaac’s concern over her made him scowl in bad temper, more at himself than Isaac. He should be the one to look after her because he was the reason she was in the house in the first place. But now wasn’t the time to raise the issue, not when such a cacophony was ensuing somewhere in the deeper regions of the upper floor from the sound of it.

“Where in the devil is it coming from?” Barnabas called as he ran down the hallway.

“Upstairs somewhere,” Myles replied, overtaking his father to race up the stairs two steps at a time. On his way, he threw Isaac a glare and pointed to Estelle. “Stay with her.”

“Oh, do shut up,” Beatrice cried as she hurried after Barnabas and Myles, albeit in a rather more sedate fashion. “Doesn’t she know what time it is?”

Nobody answered her. The sound of booted feet running along the hallway upstairs drew everyone’s attention. Myles and Barnabas paused at the top of the stairs and watched a frazzled looking Cranbury appear, heavily panting, before them.

“S-sir, come quickly. There’s been a murder,” the man gasped before he raced away again.

Myles threw a look at his father and, Estelle temporarily forgotten, ran for the source of the unrelenting screams.

CHAPTER TEN

The closer he drew to the sound of the hideous wailing, the more Myles’ stomach sank. As soon as he turned into the corridor he knew who the maid was crying over. Once inside the room, he forcibly turned the hysterical maid away from the cause of her distress and shoved her roughly toward Cranbury.

“Get her downstairs and into the kitchen, and calm her down a bit,” he ordered. “Just make sure she stops that noise.”

Myles then turned to face the body, only vaguely aware of his father in the doorway.

“Is he-?” Barnabas gasped, his chest heaving with exertion.

Myles studied the polished handle of the knife sticking out of Gerald’s back and nodded jerkily. “Dead. Yes, I am afraid so.”

Even so, he knelt beside the body and felt for a pulse. Although Gerald’s body was still warm there was no sign of life.

“Murdered?” Barnabas murmured blankly, unable to comprehend the evidence before him. “Gerald?”

“It looks like it,” Myles whispered. “I doubt he did this to himself.”

He closed his mouth with a snap when he realised his father didn’t deserve his sarcasm, especially when he had just found his brother dead. Heaving a sigh, he scowled at the door, his thoughts on Isaac and Estelle, who hovered just outside.

“What is it?” Isaac asked when Myles appeared in the doorway.

Isaac took one look at Myles' face and pushed his way into the room. He stared at his father for several silent seconds. While Isaac absorbed the import of what had happened, Myles beckoned to Estelle. He didn’t want her to witness the gruesomeness of the bedroom but didn’t want her outside in her hallway by herself either. He tried to reassure himself that when she reached him, he drew her against his side in case she was upset. In reality, she brought about calmness to his shaken world he desperately needed.

“It’s my uncle, Gerald,” he whispered.

“I am sorry,” she murmured softly. She tried to keep her gaze away from the body but was drawn to look at it anyway. One glance was all it took. She closed her eyes on it with a shudder and stepped closer to Myles’ reassuring presence. “Is there anything I can do?”

Myles shook his head. “I don’t think so. It is too late for anybody to save him.”

Estelle nodded. There was not much else she could say right now. To utter inane platitudes was awkward given she hadn’t met Gerald before, and therefore didn’t know him. What could one say when the body had a knife sticking out of his back?

Silence fell amongst the grief-stricken while everyone came to terms with the tragic events of the morning. In the end, it was Isaac who broke the growing tension.

“Who would do this?” he hissed. His fists were tightly clenched; a testament to his rage. He kept his back turned to everyone and surreptitiously wiped his eyes before he turned to stare out of the window while he tried to control his anger and grief.

“Damn it,” Barnabas cried when Isaac couldn’t continue. “Why? Why would anybody want to do something like this?”

“I don’t know,” Myles replied, for the first time in his life completely lost for words. “I don’t understand.”

Barnabas slumped onto the edge of the bed, his face as blank as his emotions. He stared down at Gerald’s lifeless body, his thoughts locked on the mysterious letters everyone had received that had lured them to the house.

“If only he hadn’t answered it,” he murmured sadly.

Myles looked at him. “Answered what?”